Many commentators, including a lot of international lawyers and scholars, have scrutinized the (as yet unnumbered) UN Security Council resolution worked out between the US and Russia and among the P-5 members of the Council regarding Syria and chemical weapons. My quick take when the draft resolution was released on Thursday night is here at […]
Archive | International Law
Greenpeace & Russia – an International Pussy Riot
I blogged earlier about Russia’s illegal seizure of a Greenpeace vessel in international waters, and its laughable characterization of their acts as maritime piracy. The ship Arctic Sunrise had been boarded after an attempt to board or come alongside a Russian oil rig for some kind of non-violent protest. Subsequently, Vladimir Putin apparently poured cold […]
Russia’s Piracy Charges Against Greenpeace Groundless and Illegal
Russia has seized a Dutch-flagged Greenpeace vessel in international waters, and plans to charge the crew with piracy. The environmentalists had attempted to unfurl a protest banner on a Russian Arctic oil platform. Russian commandos raided the Arctic Dawn and towed it to port. The unusual piracy charges may well be inspired by a Ninth […]
The Biggest Democracy’s Bigger Death Penalty
By Eugene Kontorovich on September 13, 2013 6:42 am in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Criminal Law, Foreign and Religious Law in American Courts, International Law
India has just sentenced four men to death in the infamous Delhi rape/murder case. India has apparently ended an eight-year moratorium on executions last year, greatly altering the global capital punishment map. At the same time, it also passed a new rape law, which would allow for execution in aggravated cases (not necessarily involving minors) […]
Does it Matter if US Intervention in Syria Violates the UN Charter?
Most international law experts agree that a US military intervention in Syria would violate the United Nations charter, which forbids the use of force against another state except in self-defense or when authorized by a UN Security Council Resolution. In this case, the Assad regime has not attacked the United States, and there is no […]
The U.N. Weighing in on the Zimmerman/Martin Investigation
According to a United Nations press release, A group of United Nations independent experts today called on the Government of the United State to finalize the ongoing review of the case involving the death of teenager Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager who was shot in 2012 by a neighbourhood watchman in the state of Florida. […]
President Obama and Compliance with Domestic Versus International Law
Last week I asked whether Presidents have a stronger obligation to obey domestic law than they do to obey international law, and suggested at least one argument for that view. In a very interesting pair of posts, Marty Lederman provides reason to think that President Obama may have this view as well. Treaties have legal […]
Four Points on Syria
By Eugene Kontorovich on August 30, 2013 5:44 am in International Law, National Security, War and Armed Conflict
1. “Internal” Separation of Powers. Forget whether President Obama went through Congress, or the Security Council, or even our NATO friends. The real question is if the Administration wants to prevent atrocities in Syria, why turn to the Navy? Isn’t this the job of the Atrocities Prevention Board? 2. More Evidence of Evolution. Barack Obama […]
The EU’s Israeli Settlement Guidelines and International Law
At The Times of Israel, I have a piece about the new European Union guidelines about funding to Israel, which provide that certain EU monies will not go to Israeli entities beyond the 1949 armistice lines, or that conduct activities there. In particular, I explain that while the guidelines cloak themselves with the mantle of […]
Human Rights Watch Director Privately Slurs Israel
By Eugene Kontorovich on May 22, 2013 4:30 pm in International Human Rights Law, International Law, Israel, War on Terror
The credibility of NGOs like Human Rights Watch depends on their being above and apart from the conflicts they monitor – to not take sides. Human Rights Watch has been criticized by many, including its founder, for giving up all objectivity an adopting an anti-Israel campaign. Their grudge against Israel has been clear for a […]
The Media Push for IRS Action Against Pro-Israel Groups
In addition to the IRS’s particular interest in right-wing groups focussed on domestic policy, it has taken an unusual interest in right-wing pro-Israel groups. (I am friends with the leader of the group written about in the link.) One major question raised by the IRS scandal is where these ideas came from. At least as […]
Desire to Homeschool Not a Basis for Asylum
This morning the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided Romeike v. Holder. Judge Sutton’s opinion for the court begins: Uwe and Hannelore Romeike have five children, ages twelve, eleven, nine, seven and two, at least at the time this dispute began. Rather than send their children to the local public schools, they would prefer […]
France’s Kiobel
By Eugene Kontorovich on May 2, 2013 3:19 pm in Alien Tort Statute, Corporations and Corporate Law, Global Governance/World Government, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Israel, Supreme Court
I wrote yesterday about the French Court of Appeals decision holding that French train companies did not violate international law (and particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention) by building a light rail system in Jerusalem, including areas occupied by Jordan before 1967. The case, PLO v. Alstom, is a perfect foreign coda to the Supreme Court’s […]
Landmark French Ruling on West Bank Construction and International Law
In an important but largely ignored case, a French Court of Appeals in Versailles ruled last week that construction of a light rail system in the Israeli-controlled West Bank by a French company does not violate international law. In doing so, the court sided with many of the arguments long made against the blanket application […]
Kiobel and Academic Fallability
By Eugene Kontorovich on April 17, 2013 12:54 pm in Alien Tort Statute, International Human Rights Law, International Law
Alongside the Health Care Act decision, Kiobel is an example of the professoriate failing to predict the issues that would be taken seriously by the Court both on substance and style. When the Second and Ninth Circuit began questioning “foreign cubed” suits a few years ago, the great majority of scholars dismissed such claims as […]